Near Disaster.... Advice please

[Bigwings]

Taking my OTA from the mount (Celestron SE8) I slipped and dropped it from about mount hight....onto a tiled floor.

The scope still had its dew shield on which twisted a bit where it hit the sofa in the conservatory. The laser pointer mount was pulled off as was the telrad. The sticky mounts giving way SEEM to have acted as a crash crumple zone for the OTA. No dints on the tube, one very slight scratch on the rear cell and it seems to have survived. To foggy now to set it up and I guess it will need collimating but what else should I do...look for? Cant see any damage to the optics.

I assume its covered by household insurance...??

I feel sick.....

[steppenwolf]

Ugh - not a nice thing to happen. If you have accidental damage cover on your house contents you should be covered if necessary unless there is a low maximum value per item in the small print.

The biggest worry is the mirror cell for the primary but it sounds as though you have probably got away with it unless you can hear any bits rattling around inside? I'll bet the collimation is out though ...

Good luck, I hope it has survived for you.

[Bigwings]

never thought that I would welcome a street light but have managed to get one in view and focusing seems normal...no rattles that I can hear.

Just my pounding myocardium.....

[barkis]

I'm sure we all hope nothing untoward has resulted from the fall.

You must have almost shut down when it fell. I guarantee that won't happen again, you will be over cautious from now on.

Ron.

[Glider]

Hope the tube is OK for you, better check you didn't crack a floor tile, your missus will have you if you have!

[TheThing]

Just for peace of mind, it should be covered by your household insurance, as long as you have Accidental Damage cover.

Hope it turns out ok for you.

[Macavity]

A sad tale indeed. <sigh> It's only a matter of time here, I suspect...

Having recently tripped over a pillar mount, and cracked my head open on the freezer - Breaking some expensive Zeiss varifocals, and slicing into my eyebrow - I think I'm going to go for that "rubber mat stuff", the safety-paranoid allegedly put on childrens playgrounds... EVERYWHERE!

[Bigwings]

Managed to get a peep at Polaris and do a quick collimation with nearly 1.5 turns of a screw to get the secondary shadow in the middle. Could not split the star with a 15mm EP so possibly some way to go.

Im not a double splitter normaly should this be an easy split in moderate seeing with a 15mm on an SE8?

[Glider]

Have you got a laser collimator and stuff, want me to pop over, can't say I can help but 2 heads better than 1 and all that.

[Bigwings]

It would be nice to see you, bring your scope and lets have a star party and see if a few bottles of wine helps focus....

The scope is now collimated using Polaris last night with some decent seeing. The laser gadgets dont work on SCT's

Cheers Mike

[Glider]

Doh, of course it is.